


Hiding in the Empty Mist

by Camalot27



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/F, Multi, Other, References to Depression, Symptoms of Depression, depressed luz
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26510290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camalot27/pseuds/Camalot27
Summary: After Eda is (kinda) healed and the portal is destroyed, closing the one way back to her world, Luz falls into a state of depression. Blaming herself for the problems she's dragged her friends and 'family' into during her stay, and knowing that she might never see her mom again things hit her pretty hard. But no matter what she can't drag anyone down with her, so she pushes her real emotions away and replaces them with different masks.
Relationships: Luz Noceda/Amity Blight
Comments: 10
Kudos: 111





	1. Shower thoughts

Luz lay curled up on her bed, she’d been awake for a few hours but couldn’t get herself to move. She needed to get up, she had to be to school in an hour, and although a week ago she could’ve gotten ready for school in about twenty minutes, recently she’d been doing almost everything slower than usual. 

She was just tired, that's what she told everyone, and it wasn’t a lie. Despite the twelve plus hours of sleep she’d gotten the night before she was completely exhausted. When someone asked why she was so tired she would tell them she had been studying for the upcoming magic exams or working late nights with Eda. But she hadn’t taken any night shifts with her mentor and every time she got herself to open a textbook to study she would just stare blankly at the pages, unable to focus on what they said. Needless to say she didn’t spend her nights studying as she said. She’d been sleeping. A lot. And the day before had been no exception, she’d left school and gotten to the stand to work around four. Then she left early, telling Eda she needed to do some homework and study. She got home and, instead of working on schoolwork, had collapsed onto her bed around six thirty, too drained to even change out of her work clothes. 

Now it was 7:45, almost fourteen hours after she’d fallen asleep and she was still as tired as when she’d lied down. Despite that she finally got enough strength to force herself up. She grabbed her school uniform and headed into the hall to the bathroom. Even something as small as showering seemed like an impossible task but she managed to undress and slip under the pounding rain of hot water. She sat down under the spray, “Breath, just breath.” she whispered as the warm water poured down her back. “You’ve got to do it again today, just a few hours then you can be alone. Just stay happy for a few hours, just a few hours. For your friends and Eda” she repeated it over a few times, the thought of school, of talking to people, of pretending made her feel sick but she knew she had too or her friends would worry and ask questions. The thought of that made her feel worse. It wasn’t their problems, they had plenty to deal with already with the stress of the oncoming exams. They had their own worries at home, they didn’t deserve to have Luz’s thrust upon them again. Gosh she always dragged them into things, why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut? Couldn’t she deal with her problems to herself? Grom popped into her head, she’d ran, like a coward and Grom had escaped. It had almost been a total disaster until Amity stepped in. ‘You were just trying to help.’ the small voice in her head said, ‘yea, but you also tried to help with Eda’s curse, getting yourself and Eda captured. Almost getting Eda killed.’ this voice was bitter and cold, the one that had overtaken her mind the past week. And it had always been right. Couldn’t she learn to keep to herself? Whenever she tried to help it just made things worse, she needed to leave, to help everyone by going back to her own world and leaving them in peace, but by the time she figured out they’d be better off without her the portal was destroyed and they were stuck with her. Stuck with the freak that made their lives miserable. 

The thoughts, pain and guilt were getting worse, clouding her mind, closing up her throat, she couldn’t breath, she let out a choked sob, curling up on the shower floor. She was sinking, drowning in self hateful thoughts. Through the deep fog and over the loud buzzing in her ears, she heard a loud clang of a pot downstairs and the muffled sound of Eda or Lilith cursing, the sounds snapping her out of the dark mist that had drawn her in. Her mind began to slowly clear, she lay breathing deeply on the floor, mentally and physically exhausted, the water cascading over her helping her to relax slightly. “Just breath” she whispered it over and over until she found enough strength to lightly wash off and then climb out of the shower. She dried off and changed into her uniform, brushing her still-wet hair and styling as best as she cared to do. Then she looked in the mirror, gripping the sides of the counter, trying to push down the dark emotions, to numb herself before going downstairs, trying to find some optimism or happiness to hide behind. After a minute she collected herself as best she could and headed out of the bathroom and down the stairs.


	2. The Scenic Route

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eda flies luz to school

Even before she reached the bottom of the stairs she could smell breakfast in the making but she could quite tell exactly what was being prepared, she could definitely smell some kind of meat cooking, maybe bacon or something close to it at least. Her stomach grumbled at the smell. She had barely nibbled on her school lunch the previous day and missed dinner that night so she was hungry but the thought of eating made her feel sick. 

As she neared the door to the kitchen she could hear Eda and Lilith arguing about something. They always were bickering about something or another, usually the topics were something about how to properly accomplish something without magic. They often dragged Luz into their conversations since she had lived without magic most of her life which thereby made her an expert. At first she didn’t mind helping them learn what she knew, but now every time they asked her how to do something that they could have easily done with a spell she felt a stab of guilt in her chest. 

She was the reason they couldn’t do magic, just another example of how they had to completely change their lifestyle to fit a mistake Luz made. She paused on the bottom stair, pondering that thought, savoring the guilt she knew she deserved. Then she took a deep breath, forcing the feeling down and replacing in with a numbing mist that left a void in her heart and stomach. She put on the most realistic smile she could muster and entered the kitchen, mentally preparing for any questions that would come her way. 

Eda sat on the counter, legs crossed while lilith leaned against the fridge, they were deep in conversation about the cooking temperatures for a yeti steak. King was curled up in the sun by the window napping. Eda looked over at Luz in the doorway, “Mornin kid, foods on the table. Eat up and then I’ll take you to school.” Luz greeted them both as cheerfully as possible as she walked to the table, Eda turned back to her sister and continued debating seasonings versus marinade. And that was it, no questions about how she slept, or about her upcoming finals or even her opinion on grilled or seared steak. Luz sat down, relieved by the briefness of the interaction as she dished up. Breakfast consisted of the Boiling Isles version of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage.

It was almost the same as on earth, the pancakes were sweeter and thicker than earth. They were a little over cooked but not horrible, the eggs were rubbery in texture and Luz could barely stand the first bite, her mentors would really have to keep practicing cooking without magic. The sausage wasn’t bad, but it had more of a sweet-savory maple flavor instead of the spicy sausage she was used to in her old home. The thought of eating still made her stomach churn but she managed to get down half a pancake and two sausages, she completely gave up on the eggs. Luckily the sisters were still too immersed in their conversation to notice how little she ate. King was now awake too but he was too busy sniffing the extra sausages on the table, eyeing them like unclaimed gold. 

Luz scraped the food off her plate into the trash and headed back upstairs to retrieve her bag. Although the early morning had been a wreck of emotions, the numbness she felt was starting to settle in more, covering her emotions and thoughts in a layer of mist. If she stayed busy and kept herself in check she could hopefully get through the day without any confrontation or any overly-emotional reactions. She walked into her room and grabbed her bag from a hook near the door, she hesitated, dreading the school day that was to come, wanting nothing more than to just curl up on the hard floor and sleep, get away from all the pain and guilt. The exhaustion started to cut deeper into her while at the same time coming to the surface and changing her demeanor, her shoulders sagged and her head hung slightly. The mist was gone, then empty feeling replaced by pain. So much pain. her thoughts were getting muddled again, self hatred seeping into them as she thought of more mistakes she’d made that had affected others. She stood dejected in the middle of her room, wanting nothing more than to hide back under her sleeping bag and wait for the pain to pass. 

‘No, you deserve to feel this. You deserve to feel all this and so much more.’   
A voice cut through her mind, it was sharp and cold. But it was right. She did deserve it. All of it, she deserved to be sent to that camp, deserved the mocking words of her peers back on earth, she deserved every bruise, every weird look and backwashed comment. The kids at Hexside were right, she wasn’t a witch, she wasn't even a regular human. She was a freak. A burden and a pain to everyone around her. If she didn’t exist her mom wouldn’t have to take double shifts to support her or have to deal with the problems she made at school, lilith and eda would still have their magic, amity would still be top student. No one would have ever been hurt or worried because of her. 

Edas voice cut through the thoughts, rocking Luz from her stupor, “Hey kid you coming? I mean it's fine if you're not, I completely support ditching school.” her voice called up the stairs. It was then Luz realized she was kneeling on the floor, tears sliding down her face. How long had she been sitting there? And when had she started crying? She heard Lilith snap at Eda from further away.

“Alright miss prissy pants over here says you’ve gotta go. But I've still got plenty of stink bombs and some enchanted graffiti pens from my days at school if you want to have some fun while you're there.” there was a small pause while Luz took a second to gather her thoughts and level her voice before calling back, “Alright I’m coming, but I think there's enough weird smells in that school without the bombs.” She heard Eda chuckle appreciatively, “Can’t argue with that, but the graffiti pens are still up for grabs. I’ll even let you take my old homemade firecrackers if you're interested” again Luz could make out Lilith’s muffled voice scold her younger sister. Luz closed her eyes, wiping the tears off her face and taking a few deep breaths to allow the emptiness to disguise the darkness in her mind. She relaxed and walked out to meet her mentor. 

…

The ride to school was longer than it had been before as they now had to take more care than usual to avoid the Emperor covens guards. The city was swarming with them after Eda’s escape so they had to fly low and take shadowy back streets if they wanted to go anywhere. Eda called it ‘taking the scenic route’. It was her way of hiding something… not ideal behind hopeless optimism. Luz had tried a few times in the past to apologize for making the travel more difficult but Eda had just brushed it off, “Hey it’s not your fault kid, besides it makes going places a little extra adventurous.” she’d say cheerfully as she dragged Luz and owlbert behind a create to hide from some passing guards.

Today the flight seemed extra long as they swerved through tons of dark allies and avoided heavily guarded areas. Luz sat behind Eda on owlbert. She sat quietly, thinking. She didn’t want to drag people down with her, she’d selfishly caused enough pain to her friends. She’d even made a list of the minimal standards she’d have to keep in order to make her seem fine and normal. Mostly she’d avoid her friends as much as possible without seeming like she was isolating herself. When she couldn’t avoid interaction with them she’d have to act as cheerful and energetic as she could manage until she could leave. She’d also have to avoid the red flags, stuff that would be totally out of character for her. It all sounded completely exhausting and the thought of interacting with people all day made her feel as sick as the idea of eating those rubbery eggs, but she owed it to her friends and family to do it. As she sat thinking about all the things she should do to keep up the persona, Eda spoke up.

“You’re awfully quiet today.” 

Shoot, that was a red flag. She was never quiet, it was another trait she was starting to hate about herself, couldn’t she ever just shut up? She was so annoying and she knew it. But Eda was waiting for an answer so she had to talk.

“I was just wondering, do you really think it’s safe for me to be going to school? The emperor is after us so don’t you think he’ll have people watching Hexside?” The question was an explanation for her unusual quietness but it was also something she had actually been wondering. 

“Well me and Lilith talked it over along with principal Bump, the Emperor's search for us is greater than ever but the school’s always been a bit of a sanctuary from him. I mean, I went to talk to Bump into letting you attend and he didn’t turn me in to the guards. Plus he’s letting students study multiple tracks and that’s against the law. He says he’ll protect you from the Coven.”

Luz stayed silent for a minute and so Eda continued.

“Look kid, at first I didn’t want to let you go either, but Lilith and Bump convinced me that Hexide is probably the safest place for you while we plan our next step. You need to keep learning magic and me and lilith don’t know enough about this new glyph magic to teach you. I know you're worried but everything will be fine.”

“What about you and Lilith  
I've been hiding from Belos and his goons for longer than you’ve been alive. Yeah now I don’t have magic but who needs it? I’ve got a natural thieves' talent for hiding and stealing.” she turned around on owlbert and flashed Luz a mischievous grin as if to prove her point. Even as Eda meant to be reassuring a stab of guilt hit Luz in the chest as Eda mentioned her lack of magic. She knew she needed to say something but she couldn’t think of anything so she just smiled back at Eda until she turned back to the front.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. Still basically trying to figure out where this story is gonna go, I'm also writing it pretty late in the night so it's not very good. I'll keep practicing! Just a pre warning for later, there might be examples of some self harm or traces of abuse in future chapters. Probably nothing to graphic though. Again i really appreciate kudos and comments, you got any questions or tips don't be afraid to dish them out, I'll try to answer whatever you guys put out.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This is the first written work I've done so it's not the best and it's pretty short, it's just kinda a trail and error thing as I figure this new platform out. I haven't really planned this story all that much so I don't know where it'll lead, but it could get pretty dark/depressing at some parts. I do take constructive criticism and writing tips, so if you have something don't be afraid to say it and help a new writer out. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy it!! (also i didn't know what to name the chapter so... yea)


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